This is Not America
by Margo'sShed
Summary: This is the story of what I imagine should happen now that Zoe has left. It is a love story loosely based on the film 'You've Got Mail', and will focus on Zoe's new life in Michigan, and the messages send back and forth on a dating website between her and an 'unknown man' from back home in holby... Eventual Zax.
1. Chapter 1

This is Not America

 _Dear Dr Feel-good,_

 _You know that your name should be hyphenated, right? Just thought I'd mention it, I know how much the ladies love it when I correct their punctuation._

 _Was today better than yesterday? I half expected to log on to find (another) drunken midnight e-mail. I'm assuming the lack of one to be a good sign?!_

 _Just remember, 'This is Not America...' today this is...let me think...today this is France - Flavigny-sur-Ozerain to be exact. A village in the north-east situated on a rocky spur, surrounded by three streams: the Ozerain, the Recluse (brilliant name, huh?) and the Verpant._

 _Imagine that you are waking up in a room flanked by grey stone walls, and through the open window the breeze that flutters the white linen curtains carries the bitterness of coffee – freshly ground and hot as the air._

 _Imagine eating warm butter croissants on your balcony over looking the village – no more hurry and bustle of Michigan City, instead the languid dawdling of balding Frenchmen with moustaches on their way to the local chocolaterie to buy handmade chocolates for a beautiful woman...you?_

 _Let me know how you get on,_

 _Capt. America_

She smiled as she powered off the tablet. _'Yes'_ _,_ she murmured under her breath. _Yes that was enough._

She drew in a breath, and exhaled slowly. She would reply later, after her shift.

The first message had appeared just days after her arrival in Saugatuck, Michigan. A brief message from a man from somewhere in Holby, a brief, tenuous link to 'home', that she somehow found herself clinging on to.

They had no need for personal details, he was Captain America, she was Dr Feel Good, in this strange world of online 'dating'. They knew nothing of each other except their vague location, and yet that was enough.

His first message had been short, a quick shot at gaining her attention:

 _To: Dr Feel Good_

 _From: Captain America_

 _A doctor tells a pharmacist, "Give me some prepared tablets of acetylsalicylic acid."_

" _Do you mean aspirin?" asks the pharmacist._

 _The doctor slaps his forehead. "That's it!" he says. "I can never remember the name."_

 _To: Captain America_

 _From: Dr Feel Good_

 _Was that an attempt at a joke?_

Was all she had written in response, and he had replied almost instantly despite the time difference.

In the weeks that followed it was the early morning messages from him that had got her through the each long day. She was home sick and he made every effort he could to put these beautiful images into her head, and she would find that she would repeat it to herself under her breath throughout her day... _This is not America, this is Australia, Berlin, a beach in Thailand that he had forgotten the name of..._

She was lonely, there was no denying that. She missed her flat, her friends...Max...sometimes she missed him so much that she could barely breathe, and yet she couldn't find it within herself to contact him, not yet. Maybe when the loneliness had dissipated, and the fear and slug of jet lag had waned...

-.-

This was an idea that came to me after watching Zoe's last episode. The story will be loosely based on the film You've Got Mail.

Please let me know by reviewing if you would like to read more! :)

xxx


	2. Chapter 2

_France...Flavigny...what was it again?_

She checked her watch.

 _Oh to be in France now..._

She narrowed one eye and pursed her lips, staring down at the pearl face of her wrist watch. She couldn't quite remember how many hours behind England was. Five? Six? Something like that. Either way, for her mystery online man it was somewhere between 3 and 4 AM. Too early to send a message and get a reply.

But the thought didn't stop her from wishing that she could.

 _Max, what about Max? She could call him...He'd said that she could call him anytime?_

She physically shook her head, shaking the thought from her mind. She still felt the hot shudder of embarrassment at how she had left him standing there, watching her leave through the gates at the airport with nothing left but his broken heart.

 _Max..._

She whispered his name out loud and she felt the sting of tears and the familiar lump that tightened and formed in the back of her throat.

 _I miss you..._

But the words had barely passed her lips when the door to her office was pushed open and she was faced with what was fast becoming her new reality.

"Are you planning on gracing us with your presence on the ward today, Dr Hanna?"

It seemed there was a 'Connie Beauchamp' wherever she went. Her new head of department was a sour faced woman in her fifties with perfectly white hair pulled tight into a bun at the back of her head. She lacked Connie's beauty and excellence but she was every bit as terrifying when she wanted to be.

"Sorry Dr Molinksy, I've been a bit snowed under..."

She gestured to the paperwork, reams of it strewn in seemingly endless piles.

"Yes, well. If we could see you outside of your office at some point today-"

There was a squeak of rubber soled shoes on the floor outside and a shadow came to a halt just out of sight. Dr Molinsky crossed her arms tightly across her chest and turned just slightly so that her face was in profile.

"Yes?"

"I just wanted a word with Dr Hanna. We had a meeting scheduled I think?"

It was a voice she recognised with a breath of relief. Nurse Malek glanced around the door, meeting her gaze and winking quickly. She smiled, feeling a rush of gratefulness for the interruption.

"Make it quick."

Mrs Molinsky said moving backwards and ushering him in with a sharp nod of her head.

"Thank you!"

She mouthed, as Mrs Molinsky left and Nurse Malek entered, pulling the door closed behind him.

"Thought you needed rescuing."

He said, his voice, as usual, low and carefully even, as though he were constantly monitoring how he sounded so as not to give anything away. He glanced about himself, taking in the coffee cups peaking above the rim of the bin in the corner, and the dark circles beneath her eyes.

"I don't think she likes me?"

She sighed.

"She doesn't like anybody."

He turned back to her and made his way slowly over to her desk. She smiled and leant back in her chair.

"So."

He intertwined his fingers in front of himself and looked at her with that half-amused glimmer behind his pale grey eyes.

"Can I help?"

He asked, casting an eye down to a patients file with a particularly prominent coffee ring stain near one corner.

"I shouldn't be relying on you all the time..."

"It's fine."

He cut in.

"Besides, it's a lot to get used to, new job, new people, new country..."

"Don't remind me."

She murmured.

He unlinked his hands and began flicking through the papers on her desk.

He was nurse manager in the ED, a tall muscular man. He had a way of standing which presented him as immovable, solid...reliable.

He smiled slightly and raised his eyes to look at her. His head was shaved and when he smiled like that his cheekbones cast shadowy hollows above his jaw.

He was beautiful.

He had been the first face she had met when she came into work on the very first day. He had rescued her from Mrs Molinsky's wrath then, and he had looked out for her ever since, going out of his way to make sure that she was alright, and doing everything he could to keep Mrs Molinsky off her back.

They had fallen into a habit of taking one another out for a drink every few nights, and yet still she felt as though she didn't quite know him. He was mixed race, she knew that, though there was little except the speed at which he tanned to give this away. His mother...or perhaps it was his grandmother was Egyptian, and somewhere along the line there was a native American chief, the specifics she had lost somewhere at the bottom of a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

"Feel like a drink tonight?"

"I feel like a drink _now."_

He laughed unexpectedly, an almost silent laugh and he shuffled her papers into a neat pile and placed them back down onto the desk.

"I'll take you out after the shift. Dinner? Film? Drinks...? There's this cinema on fifth that shows old films. I don't mean black and white pretentious stuff, I mean those 90's films. They always had Tom Hanks or your Hugh Grant in."

"My Hugh Grant?"

"He's English. I thought you English people all knew each other?"

He said with that ever present glitter behind his eye.

"Like the gays and the blacks?"

"Exactly."

He grinned so that lines formed around his mouth.

"You have tea with the Queen too, right?"

He said as he made his way over to the door, pausing to look back at her as he took hold of the handle.

"Oh...frequently."

She smiled, watching as he pulled the door open.

"See you later."

He grinned again and spoke quietly, glancing briefly again to the papers before her.

-.-

I'll update again soon – it will get more exciting!

Thank you for the reviews asking me to continue.

Just to clarify, Captain America IS Max. Max created an alter ego on the dating site so that he could speak to her. Zoe has no idea that it is him. xxx


	3. Chapter 3

"So, Dr Hanna..."

He held the chair out for her, watching her intently as she shrugged her coat from her shoulders and sat down. It was a running joke he seemed to have adopted, calling her Dr because she insisted on calling him by his title, even on social occasions.

"Nurse Malek..."

She raised an eyebrow and smiled as he sat down opposite her. The bar was full, there were people everywhere, and everywhere was the murmur of voices, and yet he didn't once look away from her as he linked his hands together in front of himself, resting his forearms upon the table.

"You can call me Went, you know."

His voice was low and quiet, and yet somehow she could hear him perfectly.

She mimicked his pose without realising it, folding her hands into the middle of the table, leaning forwards towards him.

"That's a verb, not a name..."

She met his eyes again, laughter glittering behind her eyes. He smiled in response, his lips down turning at the corners and for a moment he glanced down to his hands, rubbing his thumbs against one another.

"Wentworth, then."

He looked up at her again, seeking her response.

"What is it with Americans giving their children crazy names?"

She asked, laughing out loud as she spoke as he widened his eyes.

"I'm buying your drinks, you're not allowed to insult me."

As he spoke he raised a hand, gesturing to a nearby member of bar staff who was looking around for them whilst holding a tray with their drinks on.

"Thank you."

She murmured as the drinks were placed on the table.

"So. Heard any more from Captain America?"

She took a sip of her drink and swallowed, squinting her eyes as she nodded. She was surprised he hadn't asked sooner.

"Every day."

"Every day!"

He looked down at the froth on the top of his beer.

"Wow. That guys persistent."

He said after a pause, cocking his head and looking up at her though his face was still lowered.

"And you're sure it's not your ex...uh..."

"Max."

She exhaled his name.

"Max, right."

He said his name carefully, accentuating the 'X' with his tongue and a raise of his eyebrows.

"No. He hates that sort of thing. He would never..."

She sighed.

"It's not him."

"You still haven't spoken to him?"

She shook her head.

"I just need to move on...to concentrate on this job, I need to make some sort of life for myself here."

She stopped short and gathered herself, drawing herself back into her chair, slumping against it. He regarded her thoughtfully, head tilted to one side, eyes narrowed.

She raised her glass, took another sip and swallowed hard.

"I thought I was prepared for this...the change...leaving my life, my friends, my job... _him._ "

"Preparation can only take you so far, after that you have to take a few leaps of faith."

He said slowly.

"How did you get to be so wise?"

She laughed, shaking her head. He grinned again, showing his straight white teeth and glanced down at his fingers.

"I've had a lot of life experience."

He said eventually, and looked back up at her. His eyes were the colour of the sea in winter, a cool grey flecked with blue.

"Why don't I take you out?"

He asked suddenly.

"I thought this was you taking me out?"

He smiled again, the lines about his mouth perfectly even.

"No, I meant...you need to get to know the city, I was born and raised here. Let me take you out for the day, show you the sights, the best places to eat, shop, whatever."

He touched his tongue to his top lip.

"And what about your apartment?"

"What about it?"

She frowned, cradling the bowl of her wine glass so that her fingers made dark ovals in the condensation.

"Have you unpacked? Do you have a bed yet?"

He asked, remembering how they had sat on boxes the first time he had visited her, testing the boxes first to see which would be the least likely to collapse inward under their weight.

"No...to both."

She sighed, reluctant to give away that information. She had meant to be more organised...

He shrugged.

"I can help you with that."

"You don't have to."

She let the words linger between them. He smirked and took a sip of his own drink, dimples showing in his cheeks as he licked the foam from his top lip.

"I want to."

She looked at him for a moment. It was so rare to meet anyone who offered help and niceties without expecting anything in return.

"I'll make you dinner, as a thank you."

She decided, but instead of accepting he coughed a laugh into the ball of his hand and looked across at her with amusement.

"Do you remember the last time you cooked for me?"

She felt her cheeks flush for the first time.

"What was that again? Apart from unrecognisable?"

"Oh, shhhh..."

She waved a hand at him, wishing he wouldn't mention her poor excuse for a lasagne.

"We can get a take out, it's fine. Now, when are you free?"

He asked, taking the hint.

"The weekend? Saturday? Unless you have other plans?"

"No, no, no other plans. Saturday is perfect. Now, tell me more stories about Holby, specifically about Mrs Beauchamp in those heels..."

More soon. Please review and let me know what you think :) xxx


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